Dedicated to the obscure singles and lesser known bands of the rock era. Somebody's gotta do it.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Crabb Bits:Davenport Disaster, KMFH Returns

The morning after the night before and somehow I have come down with a new kind of flu that makes it look like I have the fucking mumps. I looked into the mirror this morning and seen my lips sore and sticking out like fucking Mick Jagger. Just what we need, being sick with some kind of new born flu.

I did not intended to go to Davenport on Saturday, had things to do around here in trying to help The Townedgers record their new album but I heard about Samantha Fish playing there that night so I went online and ordered up a ticket only to find that the printer here didn't have any more ink. That's when I should have known that maybe I should have stayed home but I made a commitment to see Sam when she was in the neck of the woods. Off to Wally world to get some ink and back again and exchange cars to drive to the Quad Cities.

There's a reason why I don't do winter trips to any town here, it's too cold, too snowy and there's no guarantee the cars will make it and back. I did managed to stop at the Source Bookstore and Ragged Records for music and ended up spinning some scratchy 45s at Ragged before they turned the lights out on me. Across the river to Salvation Army there and came to find that they moved the vinyl over to another side and most of it got thrown all over the place. Nothing found. Then it was off to FYE for waste another hour and pick up some of their 99 cent throwaways, next to the 50 percent off Christmas stuff. Of course, got no peace from the 4 FYE workers bothering the hell out of me either, I'm still pissed that they closed the Coral Ridge FYE a few years ago. Got a replacement copy of Howlin Wolf's Rocking Chair album, plus the worst David Lee Roth CD ever made Your Filthy Dirty Mouth, plus EMI's Best Of Diviynls and a Sam Phillips CD for a dollar, and a Tim Buckley best of CD. Not bad considering that I really wasn't bargain hunting, just wasting time before heading to see Samantha Fish tear it up on stage.

The highest of highs was of course Samantha going to town on a very explosive 90 minute set but I did misjudged the fact that if I got there at 8, I could probably find a seat only to discover we blew that one. Couldn't find a seat and most of the time was ready to smack the the couple in front of me who came out of nowhere and obscurred the view from where I was at to the point, well I may as well move closer to stage. And then snaked myself around the maze of picture taking folks on the dance floor. And to be at the right spot to have Miss Fish jump on a chair in front of me and playing guitar and having a good time of it. And regretting that I left my camera at home. Since I got to meet her on the floor I didn't see the need to do the meet and greet so I moved out to the lighted walk across US 67 to the car only to have some drunk dude wearing a horse head. But still walking on air managed to make it to the car to go home.

Then the lowest of lows happened. Driving past I-80 the car's heating system light came on and as I was seeing the temp go way beyond H, it appeared to me that I wasn't going to make it home and that I could have two choices to make. Either find the first motel room and call a wrecker in the morning, or spend the night between New River and the Wapsipinicion River in 10 degree weather. Thankfully the girl at Casey's let me park the car there and I can spend the night at the Quality Inn across the street. To which I came back out to find that my right rear tire ran over a fucking nail and it was flat. I wasn't going nowhere.

It got worse. I couldn't sleep at all over there, it was a nice room, 100 channels of nothing to choose from but my body rebelled against me throughout the night, my nose drying up from one side to another when I moved to the other side of the bed. I had problems with the free toothpaste and toothbrush it seems, after brushing, my face swelled up to which it still is today. Then I ended up getting ankle spams as well. Next day, my brother came out and helped getting the damn car back home to which he said that a hose clamp was the problem of the coolant and spending 40 bucks for putting coolant in the car and seeing 35 dollars of it forming a lake in the Casey's parking lot.

To paraphase the events:

One ticket to see Samantha Fish in concert: 14.50
Replacement Ink in Printer since I ran out: 55.00
Crappy Mexican Food: 16.12
3 Quarts of Anti Freeze that most leaked out: 40.10
One night at the Eldridge Quality Inn 80.75
Price of paying for gas to get my car back home 58.00
A couple 45s and a CD at Ragged Records: 22.00
FYE stuff: 22.55
A Blues Magoos CD at The Source. 7.00
Getting canned stuff at Big Lots: 28.00
Breakfast stuff at Casey's: 5.25

Total: 349.27

Having Samantha Fish come off the stage in barefeet and playing lead in front of me: PRICELESS!

And I'm sure I'll be game to do it all over again too. I just hope the next time the car behaves better.
Long time ago KFMH was the best FM radio station playing album rock favorites till 1993 when some guy with lots of money bought them out and it became a crappy country station before a radio corporation bought him out and made it into another top forty autotuner station. On Facebook it was announced that KFMH is coming back to become a pirate radio station on the net. Which is fine and dandy. Now all we need is to get something that we can listen to it at work. I would have loved to see KFMH return back to the radio but since Cumulus and Clear Channel owns most of the FM airspace, we're pretty much boned. But for now you can find KFMH via this link: http://www.facebook.com/ThePlusPirateRadio?ref=ts&fref=ts

While things were going down in Davenport, Sammy Johns has checked out of town in his Chevy Van. He was 66.

Photo of the week: If you're a committed bargain hunter, you'll go to great lengths to find the lost classic.